Jupiter Rising

Chapter Twenty Seven - Time to fly

Midsummer, the eve of our return. The gathering was as always joyful and merry with foods and drinks a plenty and dancing in full force. The main dance is one Leda and I enjoyed as children, hand in hand in a circle, flowers in our hair, laughing, skipping and dancing together around a central stone, carved beautifully with the rays of the sun.

It was only now, as we took our elders hands, and the movement began, that I realised it was my last here in the human world. We would soon leave the comfort of our home here, and those we've come to know and love. We would return to a world so far removed from this one that you would deem it a dream. Only just a dream.

Aspen, and his wife Ellen had taken my cousin Olly home to bed half an hour ago, he was too young to hang past nine thirty. When I thought about that, it amazed me how Leda and I had always stayed up past midnight for as long as I could remember, and mostly always saw in the dawn with the midsummer. Clearly human children needed more slumber than their Fae counterparts.

Leda was opposite me, she had not wanted to take my hand. My little sister was still mad at me for being born. Agni had not returned for the gathering, and now Leda burnt me slowly with her glare. I didn't expect Agni to take it well, for she clearly loved Leda, and she would never understand the sudden departure without the truth, but the truth was nothing but a fairy tale... and in the human world, those were found in novels and not thriving in the forest beyond our village.

I glanced toward the forest beyond, the light of the sunset bathing it in a warm glow. It was after ten and still we had the light, a thing to cherish and celebrate in a world slowly consumed by the Gloam. I had to wonder how much of our world was now in darkness?! How far had the dark spread?! and were those I knew and loved still living. I sacrificed Leda and I's childhood with our parents at almost six years old, hoping and praying my visions were true, and we would return to save them. I had to hope the future had not been changed, and that the path was still one I could return to. The path to Salvation, and the destruction of the Gloam.

If my parents had succumbed to the dark.... And If Olamoore had been infiltrated ... I wouldn't ever forgive myself. What on earth were we returning to?! It scared me every day to consider what world I was taking Leda back to. I had kept her safe here in the human world, and now I feared our own kind and the world within the veil. Our duty and our blood, it called us back... and that is what had me up at night planning our return. It was written in our creation, our DNA bound and birthed from ancient blood and powerful Fae females. The world of Fae was facing a revolution, an assault on its very creation... and every Queen was to be thrown to the darkness whilst a new ruler took them all...

I never saw their face, but the crown was always visible to me, every crest of the Kingdoms melted into it. A ruler hungry for power, and a throne to rule them all. It was never was going to stop at my Mother... she was just the first throne this darkness desired, for they believed it theirs to take. The rest were a selfish and mad grab at ultimate power and revenge.

The Prophecy, it involved my Mother... but she wasn't the one they feared. My parents were always a part of it, destined to fall in love and create the power that birthed Leda and I. An ancient power missing from the world, and the key to its survival.

The one Prophesied that took the world and desired all Kingdoms... I hadn't seen its face... but that day was fast approaching, like a galloping horse... its hooves upon the forest floor a beat that drummed into my every moment like the anxious and intimidating calls of war. I'm ready to rip off its mask, and face it... whether my every atom fears its demise at its hands or not. You never turn your back on the dark, nor the evil of the world you live... for in the shadows it multiplies and thrives. Ignorance is not always bliss. To eradicate was my only choice.